NZARE Responds To Marsden Fund Announcement

The purpose of the New Zealand Association for Research in Education (NZARE) is to foster excellent educational research in and of Aotearoa New Zealand. We are dismayed to receive the news of the disbanding of two of the Marsden Fund panels, namely Social Sciences and Humanities. The Marsden Fund is already one of the only funding opportunities for research in education in this country. Therefore, this announcement places educational research in a very precarious position.

Furthermore, these two panels receive most of the proposals based on Māori and Pacific knowledge, so this decision will reverse the progress that has been made in recent years towards equity in terms of who and whose interests are funded for research.

Minister Collins stated in her press release on 4 December 2024 that “Real impact on our economy will come from areas such as physics, chemistry, maths, engineering and biomedical sciences.” But the scientists and innovators of today, and the lifelong learners they now are, were educated by teachers who were influenced by leading edge educational research.

We believe this announcement will have a detrimental effect on educational research in New Zealand, leading to less evidence on which to base decisions for future educational planning, which will in turn negatively impact the outcomes for all learners. The move away from research also contradicts the government’s own call for evidence-based policy in education.

Even for the remaining panels, the government’s call for applications to show potential economic benefit contradicts the basic criteria of the Marsden Fund, which is for ‘blue skies’ research and theoretical innovation. Proposals for development of applications of science have been excluded on principle. This announcement will thus likely damage the integrity of the entire Marsden Fund system.

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